Psychosis
by LilyIsAwesomerThanYou
Summary: "He would give the Dark Lord a run for his money... This was more than a twist. This was a nightmare beyond the world's wildest dreams. This was never supposed to happen." Dark, psychotic Harry. Written for various challenges.


_**Written For:**_

_**.Empress Empoleon's Dark Side Competition - Harry Potter (something that wasn't supposed to happen) and Voldemort (horror)**_

_**.Cookies-and-Ink's Not For the Faint of Heart Competition - Operation Mentality, Operation Grim Reaper, and just because I can, Operation Horror.**_

**Not gonna lie: I don't usually write stuff like this. I don't like people killing other people. I don't like people going insane. And yet I went to write this about psychosis and it came out like this. **

**There's a slight perspective change near the end, so don't get confused.. :P ****Anyway, I feel you really deserve some warnings.**

**WARNINGS: death, death, mental illness, more death**

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Psychosis

He couldn't pinpoint the exact moment when it had happened. When his mind had ceased to think in a perfectly logical sequence and found itself spinning. When his friends had no longer been considered friends and from that moment forward, everyone was the enemy. When his sadistic side had come out to play. He figured it had always been there, hiding just under the surface, biding its time.

He would give the Dark Lord a run for his money.

He carefully snuck out from behind the carefully-drawn curtains of his four-poster bed and slipped into the bathroom. After quickly showering, he brushed his teeth, examining them in the mirror with no small amount of interest. Each was filed to a razor-sharp point, threatening to cut into his lips every time he closed his mouth.

He raised one hand and ran a slim, pale finger over the uneven edges of his bite in satisfaction. In the _wise_ words of Remus Lupin, "Finally the flesh reflects the madness within." But nothing could contain this. Not Hogwarts. Not Azkaban.

Oh yes. He was free. Neither Dumbledore nor Lord Voldemort himself could stop him now. He was beyond control. And he loved that feeling. No longer was he the innocent boy who hung off of the Headmaster's every word, terrified and yet excited at the prospect of defeating Voldemort. No longer was he the naïve fool who listened and believed every word the old man said. And no longer was he afraid of death. But above all, he was no longer the Harry Potter that everyone had known. That boy was long gone.

He was forced to wonder if anyone had really cared to begin with. No one but his closest friends had noticed his original withdrawn sullenness, one that even he had not known the cause to. But when neither Ron nor Hermione had looked for help, it had evolved into something much, much more. Something that changed his mind, his being.

Psychosis.

Oh, he had read about it, learned about it, but he just didn't care. If no one cared enough to help him, he sure as hell wouldn't help them.

So he let it take over.

No one had seen him in weeks. Well, they had seen _Harry Potter_, the foolish child, the naïve idiot. But they had not seen _him_. Carefully placed spells and concealment charms had hidden the worst of his transformations, and Obliviates always worked on those who grew too suspicious. Or appeared to be.

He was waiting. Waiting for the perfect moment, the moment when everyone would be off-guard. And so that night, he snuck out of the dorm quietly, fully dressed, wand in hand. His green eyes pulsed with wild excitement, his hands shook slightly. The menacing shadows he had noticed months before danced across the walls in all directions, but for the first time, he didn't care. His raven-colored hair stuck out in all directions, unkempt; he hadn't tried to make it lay flat, and it showed.

Umbridge seemed a good place to start, he figured, and crept down the hallway toward her classroom. He slipped in through the heavy door and fell asleep under one of the desks, wand pressed firmly to his chest, a sadistic smile spread across his blood-red lips.

The door bounced off the wall with a bang. He leapt to his feet in panic, crouching nervously in the enclosed space he now found himself contained to.

Where was he? _Who_ was he?

Chattering voices filled his ears, nagging on his already confused brain, and he brought his wand up, the tip even with his eyes, barely biting back the string of curses and hexes that was itching to tumble past his lips in his panic.

The voices grew louder, and yet he could not see. Darkness enveloped him, but he could not find comfort in the pressing blackness.

The door banged against the wall again, a beam of light suddenly hitting the far side of the room, illuminating rows of desks and mewing images of cats on stone walls. He fought back the urge to let loose a string of panicked spells once again.

A strangely familiar, sickly sweet woman's voice broke through and drowned out all the rest, and in his panic, Harry saw right through it to the darker intentions. He wanted to scream, and yet the voices of teenagers overpowered the cruel, lying woman's, and though he was still wary, he felt his shoulders relax and his wand lower slightly.

Yet his mind continued to run in circles under the desk, struggling to escape from the increasingly loud voices creeping nearer and nearer to him. The panic bubbled up in his chest and his pale fingers flashed up to cover his ears frantically. His eyes fell shut and he rocked back and forth, a scream building. He opened his mouth to let the full extent of his fear escape, yet something stopped him. Through fingers clamped tightly over his ears, he heard the distinct voices of his once best friends. A single rope knotted itself around his mind, anchoring him back to reality – to sanity – once again. Light flooded the classroom, and he caught a glimpse of red hair. A wicked smile parted his lips again as he crouched under the desk in eager anticipation.

The teacher began lecturing, and he barely kept himself within reach at the simpering voice. He could not quite remember where he was, or how he had gotten there. He did not know who this woman was, or why her voice created such a strong reaction in him. He did not know who the two teenagers – a redhead and a girl with bushy brown hair – were, or why they had the power to calm him down. And yet, if there was one thing he remembered, it was what he was going to do.

The boy and the girl were talking in hushed, worried tones about a boy named Harry, and he found their concern strangely reassuring. Who was this Harry they spoke of? Why was he missing? Why had he skipped breakfast? Skipped class?

As the teacher's lecture drew to an end, an uncomfortable silence filled the classroom. Students shuffled in their schoolbags, pulling out books and turning to a specified page. He seized his moment.

He jumped to his feet and brandished his wand as he quickly incarcerated the revolting teacher. He noticed with disgust and a bit of amusement that she looked an awful lot like a fat, sickening toad.

"Harry!" The bushy-haired girl was on her feet, having stood as soon as he had revealed himself. Her wand was now drawn, pointing cautiously at him.

He looked around for who she was addressing, finding no one.

"Harry?" His voice was laced with disgust. "Who is this Harry? Your words won't distract me, foolish girl!"

"Harry, it's me. Hermione." Her voice took on a pleading edge.

"You act as if I've seen you before." He paused. "You act as if _I'm_ Harry. I'll tell you now – _I'll tell all of you now_ – this Harry could be the Savior of the Wizarding World for all I care, but he won't save you now."

"If you're not Harry, who are you?" she challenged testily, taking a nervous step back as he brandished his wand even more menacingly at the distraction.

He opened his mouth quickly to answer, then hesitated. "I-I don't know," he stuttered slowly, confused, his wand drifting down slowly. "Who am I?"

"You're Harry Potter. I'm Hermione Granger; this is Ron Weasley. We're your best friends, Harry." She launched into a small synopsis of his life. He caught himself and yanked his wand back to its previous threatening position.

"R-r-r-r-regardless-ss," he stumbled in confusion, "I'm still here to do the same thing." He flicked his wand towards a pretty witch in the corner. Blood erupted from her chest in a violent spurt. Screams filled the classroom, and yet he – _Harry_ – felt a manic laugh bubbling past his lips. It filled the room, cold and terrifying, reminding him starkly of Lord Voldemort.

"Your teeth!" Hermione gasped, taking a few more involuntary steps back.

"Surprised?" he sneered, pulling his red lips back over his teeth to expose them even more. His wand slashed through the air, and a brilliant green light emerged from it. The girl crumpled to the ground, as did several others. Harry's shadows danced across the walls towards him. He hesitated, taking a step back, bringing his hands up to cradle his head in denial.

Halfway, he paused, shaking his head to clear it as the shadows on the wall disappeared. He stalked forward in his newfound 'sanity,' and drew close to the girl who called herself _Hermione_.

"Well, well, well," he grinned sadistically. "What do they call you around here? A Mudblood?" He pulled a sharp, jagged knife from his belt and twisted it slightly, light bouncing off in all directions. He yanked up her sleeve, pushing her back against the desk. "Shall I remind you?" He threw the knife up in the air and caught it deftly, turning to press the point against her forearm. "I think I shall." He let his mouth – his lips, his tongue, his teeth – dwell on the words as he pressed down and dragged the knife across her skin. As her screams filled the cramped classroom.

Several students ran for the hallway, but a mere wave of his wand slammed the door shut and locked it firmly.

"Oh no. We can't have any of you getting away, can we?" He stepped away from Hermione, who was sobbing brokenly on the floor in a heap, blood flowing from her forearm which was clearly engraved with the word 'Mudblood.' Ron ran to her, pulling her head in his lap and trying to look brave. A flash of green light and he was gone too. "I think I'll start with your _beloved_ teacher. Her voice has been grating on my nerves for an hour." He spun swiftly and waved his wand. Lifting the silencing charm, he relished in the screams that filled the classroom as blood began flowing across the floor. He turned back to the class with a sadistic grin, knife in hand.

By the time the Headmaster broke through into the classroom, Snape and the Aurors right behind him, the class was long dead. Harry sat in the middle of them, rocking back and forth, his eyes closed and a satisfied grin plastered on his face. He was covered in blood – it was soaking his robes, coloring his skin, matting his hair. It was cupped in his hands, squishing in his boots, smeared across the lenses of his glasses.

"Oh, Harry, my dear boy," Albus moaned, sinking into one of the cleaner desks, burying his head in his hands. "What have we done? What have we done?"

Harry's eyes snapped open, locking onto the face of his most hated Potions Professor. Snape looked back in shock – at the fact that no one had seen this, at the fact that he had changed so much. The emerald green eyes that were fixed hardly on his own were no longer the eyes of the girl he had loved so much. They were wild and angry, insane and so, so very cold. They were the eyes of a murderer.

The Aurors moved forward professionally and seized him by the arms, dragging Harry to his feet. He laughed – high and cold – as he was pulled across the room, the toes of his boots making two thin lines in the blood pooling on the stone floor. The laughter abruptly stopped and the deranged teen struggled suddenly against his captors, kicking out. His foot firmly collided with the chair Dumbledore had collapsed into. Blood was beginning to color the bottom of his long, white beard.

Harry looked Dumbledore up and down eerily, eyes dancing wildly with barely restrained anger and excitement, before spitting at his feet and retorting, "Don't you wish you had noticed, Headmaster? Don't you wish you hadn't been so naïve? You're no better than Harry was, you old fool."

Dumbledore gasped at the third person reference to his beloved student. The Aurors dragged him forward again, but Snape stepped forward, looking Harry in the eye again. The manic glint was still shining brightly, and Snape fought the urge to shiver as the teenager's face split into a wicked grin, revealing rows of pointed teeth.

"Potter," Snape intoned lowly. "What happened to you?"

"What happened to me, _Professor?_" Harry snarled, psychotic fire bursting in his green eyes. "I snapped. It was all too much for the Golden Boy to take in the end, wasn't it?" A Snape-worthy smirk twisted his features.

Snape stepped back, letting the Aurors recommence in their escort of the now-struggling boy out of the school. Never in his many years of teaching had this occurred. Never had it crossed his mind that it could.

This was a twist to the story. Harry Potter was supposed to vanquish the Dark Lord, not murder his classmates. Prosper in the Light, not Seclude himself in the Dark Arts. Live a glorified life, not be sent to Azkaban. Bask in his fame, not the still-warm blood of his classmates. This was more than a twist. This was a nightmare beyond the world's wildest dreams.

This was never supposed to happen.

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**Harry is meant to have general psychosis. I hope I got everything all right: I did some research but I've never personally experienced the illness (thank God), so I'm no expert. He also shows a bit of a multiple personality disorder at points.**

**What did you think?**


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